﻿<p>An <em>IfcMember</em> is a structural member designed to carry loads between or beyond points of support. It is not required to be load bearing. The orientation of the member (being horizontal, vertical or sloped) is not relevant to its definition (in contrary to <em>IfcBeam</em> and <em>IfcColumn</em>). An <em>IfcMember</em> represents a linear structural element from an architectural or structural modeling point of view and shall be used if it cannot be expressed more specifically as either an <em>IfcBeam</em> or an
<em>IfcColumn</em>.</p>

<blockquote class="note">
NOTE&nbsp; The representation of a member in a structural analysis model is provided by <em>IfcStructuralCurveMember</em> being part of an <em>IfcStructuralAnalysisModel</em>.</blockquote>

<p>There are two main representations for member occurrences:</p>
<ul>
<li><em>IfcMember</em> with <em>IfcMaterialProfileSetUsage</em> is used for all occurrences of members, that have a profile defined that is swept along a directrix. The profile might be changed uniformly by a taper definition along the directrix. The profile parameter and its cardinal point of insertion can be fully described by the <em>IfcMaterialProfileSetUsage</em>. These beams are always represented geometricly by an 'Axis' and a 'SweptSolid' or 'AdvancedSweptSolid' shape representation (or by a 'Clipping' geometry based on the swept solid), if a 3D geometric representation is assigned. In addition they have to have a corresponding <em>IfcMaterialProfileSetUsage</em> assigned.
<blockquote class="note">NOTE&nbsp; The entity <em>IfcMemberStandardCase</em> has been deprecated, <em>IfcMember</em> with <em>IfcMaterialProfileSetUsage</em> is used instead.</blockquote>
</li>
<li><em>IfcMember</em> without <em>IfcMaterialProfileSetUsage</em> is used for all other occurrences of members, particularly for members with changing profile sizes along the extrusion, or members defined by non-linear extrusion, or members having only 'Brep', or 'SurfaceModel' geometry, or if a more parametric representation is not intended.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="history">
HISTORY&nbsp; New entity in IFC2x2 Addendum 1.
</blockquote>